


the view from the brink

by CristinaNovak



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Flame Alchemy, Ishval Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:50:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27997047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CristinaNovak/pseuds/CristinaNovak
Summary: Most of her memories always circled back to him. Royai.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38





	the view from the brink

**Author's Note:**

> I read somewhere that Royai fans like suffering. I agree. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or any of these characters.

**_i._ **

“Do you love him?”

She was just sixteen years old when her father ambushed her with this question. In reality, it was not really a question but rather a full-on accusation. She contemplated playing dumb for a second, before deciding against it. Who else would this be about, anyway? She was not stupid and her father knew this.

The truth was, she didn’t know what to answer because she hadn’t known the possibility even existed; it had sprung to life in that moment, right through her father’s words. So instead of the truth she settled for a simple answer, the only one she had.

“No, of course not.”

If he had noticed the slight pitch of her voice, the way her fists clamped at the sides of her dress, or how she had faltered for just a split second, he did not mention it. He looked at her for one moment longer (this was the most he had looked at her in weeks, she realized), his eyes about to burn holes into her face, before he returned to the notebook on his desk with a simple “good.”

Riza Hawkeye let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. For a moment she didn’t move, half expecting him to add any sort of follow-up, and half waiting to regain sense of her legs. She only found the latter, so mumbling a low “excuse me,” she turned around and walked toward the study’s door.

“He is a worthless dog of the military, now,” he added almost as an afterthought, and her hand froze on the handle, one step half-taken. She looked sideways at him, but he was not looking back. She was met with the familiar sight of her father buried among his notes, his books, his research, his _life_ , and Riza did not know (could not know, not yet) where this was coming from. 

She opened her mouth to agree with him, or at least say something,  _ anything _ , but nothing came out. 

Roy Mustang had left for the military two weeks before, and her imagination had been playing tricks on her ever since he did. He was gone but she foolishly kept expecting to turn around and see him (exiting her father’s study late in the night, falling asleep on the couch with a book face-down and forgotten on his chest, hastily fixing a broken plate with a quick array). And each time, when she didn’t find him, the house would suddenly become larger and the walls would loom around her like a threat. 

Nonetheless, it was right at that moment, standing in her father’s study, under the glow of the dying sun seeping through the dusty windows, when she could definitely feel herself becoming smaller and smaller. She had to get out of that room before she fell through the cracks between the floorboards, the house swallowing her whole.

Missing someone was not loving them.

**_ii._ **

She sat and she waited. Inside the tower, the shadows provided little solace from the sweltering sun, but it was one of the many things she had gotten used to. Just as she had gotten used to the taste of ash on her lips, to sand and sunlight blazing her skin, and to the steady grip with which she held her rifle. To one more slaughtered Ishvalan and one more scorched town. She hated all of it. 

It was during these occasional idle moments, when the only thing she had to do was  _ wait _ (for an Ishvalan to kill, for a traitor to shoot), that she could not help her mind from wandering. Never too far, but dangerously enough.

Today it didn’t have to stray very far at all; just to the night before, when she had sat across from Captain Hughes, a small bonfire crackling between them, a million stars shining on their heads. Her hands tightened around her rifle.

She had been picking at the callouses that she now bore on her hands while she half-listened to the captain’s detailed account of his girlfriend’s latest letter. She made sure to add a small nod or brief comment to what he said, but her focus had really been on trying not to think about the people she had killed that day, and trying to enjoy the fact that she didn’t have to hold her rifle for one damn second. She, of course, had failed at both.

“So what about you?” he had said, and it was a second before she realized his story was over and he was expecting her to say something.

“What about me?” She had looked up to find the man’s bright, green eyes, earnest and glowing in her direction. It was now, too, that she noticed that most of their squad had retreated into their tents. Their surroundings had gone unusually quiet while a half moon hung above as their only witness.

“Got anyone special in your future?” he had said without a single trace of irony. “Anyone you love?” 

Something caught her eye and halted her absorption. She raised her rifle and looked through the scope with one eye while the other remained behind the blinder. Through the rubble and the corpses, between the absurdly blue sky and what little remained of a civilization, she found him. Coat covered in soot and dust, jet-black hair in complete disarray, she always found him like this. She always hesitated.

Major Roy Mustang, The Flame Alchemist (her father’s apprentice, the keeper of his secrets) walked with his back to her and she followed him closely with her rifle’s scope. She often found herself unable to look away even if she wanted to. She had seen him a thousand times through this same scope, hoping it would be the last. 

He walked by himself until he reached the steps of what had been an ishvalan temple just the previous day, but now lay like a useless skeleton under the sun. She saw him come to a stop and she noticed his gloved fists clench at his sides. The array on her back prickled.

Roy Mustang turned around and looked straight at the tower and (could it be?) right at her. She knew he recognized her usual post, but could he  _ see  _ her? Could he know that the military’s top sharpshooter was pointing her rifle at him in that precise moment? Did he wonder if the tattoo on her back itched like a ghost? Did his fingers ache under those gloves, too? 

She ran her tongue over her lower lip and tasted ash, and sweat, and blood. She gulped and felt as if they were the last two souls in this godforsaken desert. She could pull the trigger and that would be it, but she always hesitated. 

“I…” she had hesitated the night before, too. Although her answer, in the end, had been simple. “I don’t think I can love anyone right now.”

She lowered her rifle and Roy Mustang became a speck in the distance. She saw him turn away. She clenched her teeth, her back burning.

**_iii._ **

In the end, he had agreed to do it because he knew he (they) had no choice.

She did not scream; in fact, she had barely emitted a sound. Just like when she first got it, she lay on a mangy old couch, face buried in a pillow, but now her father’s secrets burned and became useless on her back. 

One, two snaps of his fingers and that was it. Just enough to make the array undecodable, and painful enough to make her stifle involuntary sobs against the pillow. She hadn’t looked up from it since moments before he did it, but the smell of charred skin ( _ flesh _ ) reached her nostrils nonetheless. For a split second, she felt like she was back in that tower in Ishval. Perhaps she was. 

He pressed a cold compress against her wounds, and then gently applied an antibiotic ointment. The searing pain on her skin slowly yielded and was replaced by a dull throb. The ointment’s strong scent hid the smell of burnt skin. And still, even after everything she had already seen she could not look up yet.

“Riza, I…” she heard his voice get caught in his throat and her own stomach dropped. He took a deep, shaky breath but he didn’t develop any further. She could sense him kneeling by her head, one hand holding the compress on her back once again, but not doing much else. 

She heard him shuffle by her side and the weight of his hand was suddenly missing from her back. For the first time in a while, she freed one of her eyes from the pillow and peeked sideways at him, but he did not notice this. He now sat on the carpeted floor by her shoulder, his back against the couch, his arm resting on a folded knee, staring blankly ahead at nothing at all.

She studied him with one eye and noticed an incipient stubble covering his cheeks and a slight tremble in his hands. She was sure she had never seen either before. He ran one of his unsteady hands up his face and it halted right across his eyes, blinding him. She could see the smallest of quivers on the corner of his lips.

Slowly, she released her face from the pillow. The movement made her back sting but the air in the room, although not cold, felt surprisingly soothing against her swollen eyes and cheeks. She breathed in, the first real breath she had taken in a while. 

Eyes still hidden behind his hand, he broke the silence with a low and surprisingly steady, “I’m sorry.” 

Riza Hawkeye thought of her father. Her memories of him often involved a genius lost to his own research, locked in his study for days, forgetting meals, and forgetting himself. A stern man who knew too much and stopped living once he did. A dedicated mentor at his best, and a neglecting father at his worst. 

She wanted to reply something, but the words just refused to come. So instead she extricated one arm from under her torso, and ignoring how her back flared, placed it on his forearm, maybe reassuringly, or perhaps to just hold on to anything herself. 

For all of his neglect, her father had trusted her, and only her, with his life’s work, his darkest secrets, his awful science. For the briefest of moments she wondered what he would think; had she made the right choice? _ Had he _ ? She thought she could begin to understand him now, years after he was gone, and it was funny because it no longer mattered.

Her grip tightened around the sleeve of Roy’s jacket. Soon, her hand was met with his own, the one that had been covering his eyes, and it held on. His fingers were wet against hers and his eyelashes glistened as he looked right ahead, far beyond the room they were both in. 

**_iv._ **

On certain days, she would find herself standing outside Colonel Roy Mustang’s office, hand already diving for the handle, before remembering her relocation. She would stare at the small, golden plaque with his name carved in neat writing, and she would wonder something nonsensical, like if his paperwork was done, and her throat would tighten.

On other days, she would find a silly excuse to enter his office. To find a book, or a hair clip, or to retrieve some signed document. Anything she might have left there besides herself. These days were as rare as they were dangerous, so she kept them far apart from each other.

On most days, she would find herself walking directly up to Führer Bradley’s office, no accidental detours, and there was a certain sorrow in doing so. Today was one of those.

She had learned fairly quickly the ways and tricks of her new position; the exact way the Führer President liked his paperwork to be stacked and his meetings organized. How he preferred his coffee and his tea to be prepared, and which afternoons he took off to spend with his alleged family. She was also, now more than ever, very aware of her situation: she was a hostage of her commanding officer, and of things she had not entirely wrapped her head around. 

Still, she was no less diligent, her work was no less efficient, her hands had not wavered once. Not even as he asked her what she thought about the leader of the country being a homunculus. Not even as she reflected on the Führer’s life being an act and his family a deception. In her opinion, there was a certain sorrow in that, too.

“Most of my life is just an act,” he agreed. “But my wife, at least, was of my own choosing.”

A small gasp escaped her throat before she could stop it. The Führer’s words fell on her like shattered glass. She brought him his tea and tried to keep as composed as she could, but the slightest clinking of the cup against the plate gave her away. 

He drank the beverage with a satisfied grin. He knew exactly what he was doing and she could not look away. 

She was dismissed earlier than usual, and she fled from the office as quickly as military propriety (and her own limbs) allowed her. She walked with brisk steps as she calculated the fastest way to get home and take Hayate for a walk before the sun came down and the shadows became unbearable. 

Her escape was interrupted at the corner of the hallway, when she turned it and bumped straight into him. 

“Lieutenant!”

“C-Colonel!” She gathered her wits almost instantly and saluted, taking one step back from him as if he would burn her if she stood too close. 

He was halfway to saluting back before something in his expression shifted. She had clearly done a terrible job at hiding her own distress, or perhaps he just had gotten too good at reading her (the thought made something well up in her chest).

“What’s going on?” He asked gravely as his hand changed its course from saluting to reaching for her. It froze in midair; it hovered and hesitated in the empty space between them as if he thought better of it (not here, not  _ anywhere _ ) before flexing his fingers and dropping to his side, defeated. His dark eyes held the question in the air.

Even if she were to explain what was going on, she wouldn’t know where to begin. She thought of her conversation with Führer Bradley, of the small grin tugging at his lips, almost  _ taunting _ , as he talked of how he had gotten to choose his own wife himself. 

For some reason, she wanted to tell him about it; how she had, idiotically, almost pitied Bradley. How his words and his little smile had instead filled her insides with lead. How she could not shake the very real feeling of being constantly watched by shadows. 

“Everything’s fine, sir.”

Of course, she also thought of the things that she herself could not choose.

**_v._ **

Not for the first time, she believed she was back in that endless whirlwind of souls, being vacuumed into nothing and everything at the same time. She awoke with a gasp that made the wound on her throat sting. Her hand went to her bandaged neck and she blinked, the last remnants of the dream floating like tiny red comets against the dark ceiling before disappearing. 

She rubbed her fingertips against the gauze, and she felt a little bit more awake and more alive, her soul within her body, her seams stitched back together, her heartbeat slowing down. It took her a moment to remember where she was, the edges of the utility light fixed to the hospital’s ceiling coming into focus. 

“Bad dream?” 

With a start, she tried to look sideways at her room companion without putting too much strain on her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his silhouette defined against the deep blue light spilling through the curtains. She realized it was almost dawn. 

He was sitting on his bed, his back against his pillows and the headboard, hands clasped on his lap. He appeared to have been already fully awake. His head was angled toward the window that now framed him, an indigo rectangle against the blackness of the room, as if in contemplation, although she knew he couldn’t see anything through it. Not yet.

“Yes,” she breathed, her voice hoarse from sleep (or lack of it). She cleared her throat, “I’m sorry if I woke you, sir.”

“Nonsense, Lieutenant,” his voice was clear with wakefulness, in stark contrast to her own. “I’ve been awake for a while now.”

She nodded, immediately realized how pointless the gesture was, and added “okay.” 

She closed her eyes for a few moments before accepting that she was too alert to go back to sleep. Instead, she carefully sat up and reclined her back against the pillows, skidding down until her neck was in a comfortable position. He heard her shuffling around and turned his head toward her; in these shadows, she could almost believe he was staring at her. 

“Neither of us is sleeping any longer, apparently,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “If we weren’t hooked to this—” he raised a bandaged hand, gesturing toward the IV drip he was connected to “—I would organize an escape from this room. Fresh air could do us some good.” 

“That would’ve been nice,” she said, her voice becoming less hoarse with each of her words. “Although, getting through those nurses might’ve been a hassle.”

“One more situation in which transmuting without a circle might come in handy.”

“So is  _ that _ going to be a thing, now?” 

“Certainly,” he said with a hint of mirth, before his voice recovered the edge she had sensed before. “So, what was it this time?” 

She understood at once what he meant, but she didn’t really know how to describe her dream, or more precisely, the moments after he had disappeared during the Promised Day. That eon after they had pinned him down, stabbed him through his palms, and forced him to perform that which he had vowed not to. If she closed her eyes, she could still clearly see him; helpless, surrounded by terrible sparks of blue light and glaring shadows. She pushed the thought out of her head.

“Something about you being useless in the rain and me having to save your butt,” she answered, instead. “The usual, sir.” 

“Dreaming about your superior officer, Lieutenant?” he said with levity, and she let out a short breath of laughter, ignoring the sting on her throat. She could tell he didn’t believe her at all, but she was grateful he didn’t push the topic any further. “I’m sure that counts as a criminal offense under fraternization laws.”

“It doesn’t count, I’ve checked.”

“You have?” his voice revealed a small trace of surprise, and she felt slight heat climbing up her neck and face.

“And you should too if you ever want to become Führer,” she chastised, ignoring the drop of her stomach.

“Well, consider it done, then.” He paused for a moment, and turned his head toward the window again. “All this talk about fraternization laws and dreaming about me,” he continued. “If anyone from the brass hears you, they’re going to think you’re compromising the chain of command.”

“Well, I think the brass has done a terrific job compromising the chain of command already, Colonel.”

“Right you are, Lieutenant.”

She noticed the curtains turning light purple and orange, while outside the first rays of sunlight shot across the sky. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, but besides that and their own talking, everything was very quiet. There was a certain tranquility to that morning that felt, if anything, unusual. She expected more than one nurse to burst into the room any minute now.

“What got you up so early?” she asked him after a moment of silence. She had meant to hide her own curiosity by sounding more chiding than she actually did. 

“I—I’m thinking about today,” he answered after a short sigh, and she knew what he was referring to: his appointment with Dr. Marcoh, scheduled for that afternoon. He gripped the sheets around his waist, his head down, staring at something neither of them could see. “About what comes next. So much has happened already, and yet… this is it, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she agreed softly. “Are you worried?” 

“Well, no. Not at all,” he answered at once. He often spoke with determination, but there was something gentle about his words right then that made him seem several years younger, almost like the apprentice cooped along with her in her father’s old house. “I’ve got the right people with me.” 

Perhaps it was the loss of blood, the complete exhaustion from the Promised Day, or just the simple fact that she had been on the edge of calamity itself, but her mind carried her to simpler times that had seemed far more complicated in the moment. To choices that had felt right but turned out to be wrong. To decisions that would haunt her until her last breath. To making things right. To redemption. It all always circled back to him. 

They had seen their fair share of hell time and time again, enough to scorch any remnant of hope out of a person and to exhaust even the simplest desires. And yet, after being on the brink of it all, even when blinded by revenge or despair, they had somehow preserved what had once been a silly, noble dream in front of an old alchemist’s grave. 

As if he could read her thoughts, which she was beginning to think he could genuinely do, he said “I think it’s fair to say we’ve been through hell and back together, Lieutenant. I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough for having my back.” 

“You’ve had mine too, sir. I guess you could consider it equivalent exchange.”

He chuckled; a genuine sound that ran through her veins like energy, or alchemy, or something she could not understand fully. It tugged at her own lips, too.

“Can I count on you, then? To continue to have it?”

“You already know you don’t have to ask that, Colonel.” 

Her father had asked her once if she loved him, and she had given him a simple answer because it was all she had: of course not. But the memory almost didn’t seem from this same lifetime, nor the accusation so bewildering, after all.


End file.
